


become stronger when exposed to

by entanglement



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Other, no graphic descriptions, tagged 4 non-con again 2b safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 10:10:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6234565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglement/pseuds/entanglement
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>before kilgrave, after kilgrave</p>
            </blockquote>





	become stronger when exposed to

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [incoming signals of frequency and intensity.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6138550) by [entanglement](https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglement/pseuds/entanglement). 



Two weeks before Jessica meets Kilgrave, a client kicks her so hard in the back that she can already tell she'll be pissing blood for days.

One of the photos from her desk flutters to the floor in front of her: the client's husband in an alley with his head tipped back against the brick and his mistress on her knees in front of him. She scoffs, but has to bring her attention back to the client when she catches him pulling back his foot for another kick out of the corner of her vision. The kick fails when she catches his foot and yanks him onto the floor. He scrambles to fight back, but not before she crawls up to grab his head and crack it once against the floor to knock him out. Maybe it was a bad idea to lead with the pictures.

She fishes into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet, plucks out one of the cards inside and runs it through the POS adapter on her phone to collect the reimbursement they'd agreed upon before tucking it back into his wallet and the wallet into his pocket. She politely drags him all the way to the elevator before sending him down to the ground floor. When she turns back, she can see the junkie from a few doors down peeking out from the small crack he's opened in the door, frantically shifting his nervous gaze from the man in the elevator to her and back to the elevator.

"Still better than the ones that cry," she says with a shrug.

He quickly closes the door and she can hear the deadbolt turn as she passes.

 

(

Imagine being trapped behind glass. Imagine the streaks of blood from where you desperately tried to hit it until it shattered but only split your knuckles. Imagine how it dries to a deep, coppery red when you give up.

She can still hear him, muffled through the barrier, telling her they're meant for each other. They're soulmates. She pushes away and into herself, trying to force her memory to stop the record until she can break free from this, because she knows how the worst experiences etch themselves into the inside of her skull. Her hands look so far away until the night she punches Reva so hard in the chest that the life instantly empties out from behind her eyes. That night, drifting ahead towards Reva's body, she can see the fracture in the glass when she hears his command behind her and ignores it. She can feel the loss of his presence in her mind and her will feels foreign in comparison to it.

He was always so convinced of an intangible something between them and he wasn't completely wrong. She can still feel him now like the distant nag of a phantom limb.

)

 

Ruben's blood dries Jessica's hair into a tangled lump and she has to scrub at it viciously before it finally dissolves and trickles down into the drain. She can feel that old feeling again. It's the one that makes her feel like she's staring through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars, but she forces her eyes to stay open on the dried blood along her side long enough to scrub it away too. She can't duck out from it all now. Not when Ruben's body is still on her bed, his blood seeping into the mattress. His death can't be for fucking nothing, can it? 

Her skin is bright red from the abuse when she steps in front of the mirror to stare herself down. Her eyes are red too and she can feel the sting of new tears gathering again at the corners of her eyes, but she quickly rubs them away before they can fall down her cheeks. Instead of street names, she visualizes the wet crack that would probably accompany crushing Kilgrave's throat with her bare hands.

"Get it together, Jones," she growls quietly to herself so Malcolm can't hear her. 

She can hear the quiet shuffle of his shoes as he paces in the next room. A police siren wails as it passes her apartment building and it fades off to a distant echo as it continues down the block.


End file.
